Frasier (w/Nichole Perkins)

"I don’t know what to do with those tossed salads and scrambled eggs..."

Writer, "Thirst Aid Kit" co-host, and Niles Crane super-fan Nichole Perkins joins host Sandy Allen to dissect the immensely popular sitcom, Frasier. They discuss the Crane brothers' complicated relationship to their patients and each other, and whether Dr. Frasier Crane, the radio psychiatrist, needed a psychiatrist of his own.

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Transcripts available at madchatshow.com.

Additional music: “Cupcake Marshall” by Blue Dot Sessions, under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license. 

SANDY'S NOTES:
Read Nichole’s collection of poetry, Lilith, But Dark! Subscribe to her (and Bim Adewunmi’s) podcast, Thirst Aid Kit, which is soon re-launching from Slate! 

For more about the recent history of the psychiatric profession, I highly recommend Robert Whitaker’s Mad in America (the book that spawned the media organization of the same name, a resource I also highly recommend). It’s also going to be the second Mad Chat Book Club pick! Join me for the discussion on the Mad Chat Instagram Live at 8:30 pm on October 3. Want to send a question or topic for discussion ahead of time? Message us on a social media, or email us at [email protected]. Hope to see you at Mad Chat Book Club. 

I truly truly love Esther Perel’s podcast Where Should We Begin?. It’s a great way to listen to what great therapy sessions can actually sound like (in this case, couples’ therapy sessions). 

Nobody has covered the Crane brothers, especially Niles, with as much depth and nuance as Daniel Ortberg at the The Shatner Chatner; I referenced this post analyzing the Crane Brothers as stock clowns. 

Frasier is a show driven by a laugh track and I was therefore reminded of this excellent episode of 99% Invisible about laugh tracks.